While Queen will never be the same without Freddie Mercury, the remaining band members and Adam Lambert (American Idol) are still rocking. And while their VR The Champions has been around for a while if you really dig Queen and haven't heard about it, you might like it.
In fact last year in Oct. 2017 the VR concert won an IMAGO award for extraordinary Technical Achievement. While it's not a real concert, it's close to one.
Queen and Adam Lambert’s first-ever live-concert VR experience, VR The Champions, grabbed the IMAGO Award for Extraordinary Technical Achievement, given to Jannicke Mikkelsen FNF, the film’s Director, Cinematographer and Stereographer which happened at the IMAGO Awards in late 2017, according to Adam Official.
So of course, this means they are doing it right.
IMAGO is the European Federation of Cinematographers, which includes all the world´s Cinematographers Societies. The award ceremony took place in Helsinki on Saturday, October 28, 2017, with close to 250 international cinematographers, colleagues and friends had gathered to give awards for cinematographers by cinematographers.
The VR experience was made by Miracle Productions and Eagle Rock Films. Mikkelsen directed VR The Champions with stars Brian May, Roger Taylor, Adam Lambert, and the band. Shown off at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival’s Tribeca Virtual Reality Arcade, it provides the VR experience worthy of a live Queen concert.
In VR you'll be in the front row with Queen and company right in front of you. There's ‘flying’ 3-D and 360-degree video, and you can virtually hover above the spectators and also around the band members while they rock on stage at Barcelona’s Palau Sant Jordi.
Queen’s Brian May inspired and produced VR The Champions. Brian had invited Jannicke Mikkelsen, the talented 3-D artist to direct it, who also worked with David Attenborough. This was the world's first flying 3-D 360-degree concert shoot, and you should check it out if you're a big Queen fan.
Mikkelsen stated when she got the award, “I am humbled and honored to receive this award. I would like to thank Brian May as he was the entirely behind the creation of the project. I only had two weeks to solve this seemingly impossible project brief, spending a lot of time with Brian working through the engineering of the camera rig, using 20 cameras to get the 3D, stereoscopic result Brian was seeking. Brian's background as an astrophysicist and photo historian specializing in Victorian stereoscopic photography was the main contributor in bringing this project to life.”
Brian May said about the VR concert, “This is the fulfillment of a dream. Jannicke did a wonderful job - I can't think of anyone else who could have pulled it off so magnificently in such a short time. I think she made a milestone and she so deserves the award. Through this unique Virtual Reality creation, fans around the world are for the first time able to experience the excitement and energy of a Queen + Adam Lambert show in their own homes. Many of you have seen VR, but not VR like THIS!”
VR The Champions can be copped for $9.99/€10.99/£9.99 on VRTGO, Universal Music Group’s VR platform for the iPhone and Android and is also viewable with most web browsers. Here's where to go to get the goods www.vrtgo.com/queen.html
It is also good to watch with OWL VR kit made by Brian May, and can be viewed with VR viewing system including Oculus, Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR and HTC Vive.
The OWL Virtual Reality Kit by Brian May can be bought here www.londonstereo.com, according to Queen Online.
Definitely sounds noteworthy and looks good, so if you want to kick back at home and watch a concert from the current Queen it's a no-brainer to buy. But for now here's an oldie but a goodie.
Do you think Adam Lambert + Queen live up to the original?